dispatches from the hermit's (other) cave

An article over at The Stranger in which a former independent bookstore employee talks about the "self-satisfied young white men" who make up the majority of shoplifters that can't understand that they are not sticking it to The Man by stealing from independents, no matter how anti-establishment their reading material.

Bookgasm is keeping a list of places in books the term "solar plexus" can be found. No, I have no idea why. Though I'm not the least bit surprised that a Destroyer (Remo Williams) book is the first entry.

So first he's quitting.
Then he's quitting if he can't get his guilty plea withdrawn.
Then he's not quitting even though he can't get his guilty plea withdrawn.

Whatever questions there might be about Larry Craig's sexual orientation, he's left us little doubt that he's a Republican.

Pulp Pusher has put up the first of a four-part interview with Andrew Vachss. The initial purpose of the interview is to discuss his new novel Terminal, but unsurprisingly it ends up covering quite a bit more.

Part Two will be up September 24.

Omigodomigodomigodomigod! Stingray is being released on DVD sometime early next year.

Something in my brain just spontaneously combusted.

Kumbarumba!

Oh, and here is a nice fan site for Stingray.

My poor little tangerine iMac DV turned seven in June. I had accepted Apple pushing forward the release of Leopard until October with as much Zen-like calm as I could muster. I figured it could even be a good thing, since I'll have a bit of an extra infusion of cash early that month.

So today I decided to check around to find out if there had been any further hard details about the release date, and a tech blog in Australia, Tech.Blorg, is suggesting that it might get pushed forward to Spring 2008 [link]. Mind you this is the only place I have found making such a claim, but it still makes me feel a little ... crumpled.

So the Associated Press did a feature story on Nome and the Alaska Natives who live in and around there. Which would be really nifty if the story hadn't been all about drunk Natives.

According to Google News it's up at the Guardian and Newsweek via MSNBC, but as an AP story there's no telling how widely it's been printed. A quick search at Technorati shows three blogs putting the story up without comment. And the main paper in the state, the Anchorage Daily News? They used it for the main story on their front page today. It would have been bad enough had they done it on Sunday when the main front page story is always a feature, but on a weekday? When that spot is usually taken up by an actual news item? Not cool.

I have to admit that I'm not a very good tech geek. My computer is over seven years old and I don't own a cell phone or an mp3 player.

But I have to admit the new iPod touch hits my gadget zone quite nicely. With Wi-Fi for web browsing it manages to be pretty close to what I've actually been imagining might be the perfect gadget for me: a cell phone without the phone.

Oh, I don't have high-speed internet access at home either, but it really wouldn't matter, don't you think?

Interesting statistics concerning new journal creation at InsaneJournal here.

Good timeline for Six Apart here, starting from 2001 and Moveable Type.

So I've recently gotten BBC America, and I've only just realized that Mr. Darcy is working for British Intelligence. Which in a strange way kind of makes sense. I think had she lived in a different time Jane Austen would have written kick-ass spy novels.

Ten years and eight days ago the venerable New York Times published an article on *gasp* fan fiction. It is still available to read online without paying, though NYT will want you to register (bugmenot.com is your friend).

It is an interesting read even now, particularly for some of the quaintness it shows: slash is barely given a mention, and one writer's self-congratulatory comments for what is obviously a huge Mary Sue go unchallenged.

I would say it was a little less than a year after this article was published that I really discovered the world of online fandom and fanfic. I actually had quite a fondness for the oddly fascinating works of Nina Smith, who is mentioned in the article. Her Chicago Hope trilogy featuring a mixture of extreme libertarian views and orthodox Judaism is a real treat. Of a sort. The first part of it is still available at the due South fanfic archive at squidge.org, but as it was the only part with a dS crossover, the remaining two parts of the trilogy are not archived there. I haven't been able to find them or her JAG story (involving the revival of ancient Mayan practices and also featuring an amazingly intelligent and outspoken orthodox Jewish woman) anywhere else online. A pity, really. Such history should last longer than that.

I was recently pointed to an interesting article from the L.A. Times [link] about the gratuitous killing of large farm animals. Animal abuse is often an indicator of an extremely disturbed person, but unfortunately these kinds of killings don't create the kind of outcry that the killing of animals normally kept as pets does, and the animal cruelty laws are different when it comes to farm animals.

In January, a 16-year-old Humboldt County boy was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the killing of a homeless man. Earlier, that same night, the teen fired a dozen shots into a cow, hitting it in the face and eye and cutting off an ear, authorities said.

The L.A. Times does require registration - I recommend bugmenot.com.